Tandem
by Diglossia
Summary: It's an inseparable bond. Or: The story of Chitose and Dewa.
1. Chapter 1

Looking at Chitose now, it's hard to understand how Dewa ever became friends with him. It's hard also to understand how they've managed to stay friends.

They met when Dewa was thirteen and Chitose was fourteen, and the world was a lot simpler. That is a lie. The world has never been simpler. For them, it hasn't even been nice.

ØØØ

Throwing his hands up, Chitose throws his hands up and shoves his chair back from the table. It scrapes noisily against the floor, earning him a glare from the librarian. "I don't get this!"

Dewa adjusts his glasses and sighs. Moral education is particularly difficult for Chitose.

"You have to stop trying to think about it," he tells Chitose for the hundredth time. "They don't want to hear what you think. They want to hear the right answer."

At the start of his second year of junior high, Dewa took up tutoring in his spare time. It wasn't as a favor to any particular teacher or some misbegotten filial duty to his fellow students: Dewa simply didn't want to go home. The librarian let him stay as long as he kept himself suitably occupied, and it wasn't long before he ran out of things to read. There were no computers in his run-down shitshow of a school, and PDAs were to be kept off in the library. Tutoring became his go-to activity when the librarian started spreading word that he was a student who actually _cared_.

Chitose is a lesson in frustration. He isn't much good at any subject or particularly interested in his grades. He's persistent, though, and he genuinely tries. That one quirk sets him apart in a school where the dropout rate is forty-nine percent.

The outside world lauds Shizume City as a technological wonder, the capital of one of the world's most successful economies. Look at the skyscrapers and the cleaning 'bots. Look at the school island, where thousands of high schoolers receive first-rate education. Look at the accomplished police force keeping such perfect order.

The great Shizume City, where the sounds of crying babies and domestic abuse rock millions to sleep. Away from the city center, the streets don't shine so prettily and the trash piles make comfortable beds for the homeless, children and adult alike. The cleaning robots the outside world celebrates were created to manage the encroaching filth of Shizume's public places, but out here no one cares. Yakuza and lesser gangs don't bother to hide, and no one knows who's there to protect and who to harm. The police do nothing.

The technological miracle is a miracle for a few thousand and a worthless phrase for the millions more who live in the city.

Kusanagi Izumo could tell you with certainty that the Gold King, Kokujoji Daikaku, was behind the transformation that made Shizume City and Japan into what it is today. The Gold King, with the help of his oddly-named Rabbits, brought about the series of famous inventors, engineers, doctors, architects, and businessmen that are now household names. It's a pity, Kusanagi would also say, that those with tapped potential get to live in the technological miracle while the untapped are left to suffer on the ground.

Dewa doesn't know Kusanagi yet. When he meets him, he will find a kindred spirit, someone with one foot in the light and the other in the shadows.

"But what if it's _not_ the right answer?" Chitose asks. He's brash and he's foolish, and Dewa can see his future all too clearly.

"Then you pretend it is."

"That's stupid."

"That's school."

It's simple: memorize the right things and you'll succeed. Think critically and you'll fail. The happy medium is to think critically, keep your mouth shut if your thoughts differ from the prescribed answer, and stew in your own nihilism.

Funnily enough, it was the school's English teacher who pointed Chitose his way. The woman is a foreigner and has different ideas about education. Instead of calling Chitose another bad student because he doesn't like memorization, she decided he has potential and needs to keep struggling his way through school.

Dewa he absolutely does not care about this kid. If he wants to fail, let him.

Only Chitose turns out to be stubborn, not lazy. He wants to pass. It's just that he genuinely doesn't get some of his classes. Most students either swallow what they're told or blow it all off. Some, like Dewa, are just waiting until they can get out.

Not Chitose. He plans to change things.

"The world is sick," he says, "and I want to make it better."

He's earnest about this, too, and doesn't get why Dewa laughs at him. Dewa can't agree with half the things Chitose says, but tutoring is boring and Chitose actually shows up. Sitting in the school library talking to this idealistic kid is better than going home.

At the very least, he makes Dewa think.

ØØØ

"What are you doing?"

Chitose turns his face up from his bent over position of supplication. "Are you going to take it or not?"

Dewa looks at the package suspiciously.

Chitose rattles it.

"It's not poison."

"That's reassuring."

Chitose smiles. He seems to think smiling is the best response to most situations.

"Are you going to take it?" Chitose repeats. "My back is starting to hurt."

"Fine."

It turns out to be marinated, grilled squid. It even looks homemade. Dewa continues to look at it suspiciously. Not poison…but why?

It would probably go great with his rice.

Dewa's stomach growls.

"My mom told me to give it to you. Since you're tutoring me and all."

"Your mom makes it?" It can't be that bad then. Moms are supposed to be good cooks. Dewa would like to have a mother who cooked for him.

"Yep. She's a really good cook, too."

ØØØ

"My mom made extra. You want some?"

He offers so often and Dewa is so grateful for anything that isn't store-bought that he let his guard down and stops being suspicious. Chitose, he figures, isn't trying to make a fool of him.

In the end, it doesn't matter that Dewa gave up his wariness. He'd never guess Chitose's motives.

ØØØ

Dewa makes it a goal to get Chitose into high school. He is barely smart enough for it. His chances won't be great if he doesn't finish junior high school.

Dewa says these things like they mean anything. The fact is, fewer and fewer of his acquaintances return with each new semester, and it isn't always because they aren't good enough. School isn't that hard. What is hard is falling into a gang or caring when you know finishing isn't going to make your life better, or dying. It is hard to study when you are dead.

Dewa knows exactly who can get through high school on their own and he doesn't worry about them. They are the few who are going somewhere.

He doesn't want to lose Chitose, and he isn't exactly sure why.

ØØØ

It is better to be in the small house where nothing works quite right then at home where everything does because no one is ever there to mess it up.

Chitose's mother has a new boyfriend every time Dewa comes over, which admittedly isn't often. Either Chitose's father ran off or he was never in the picture to begin with. Dewa doesn't ask and Chitose doesn't say.

Chitose's mother always coughs delicately into her hand, cigarette clutched between her slim fingers. Her brown hair is a duller version of her children's copper sheen, her face paler. Dewa has never once seen her fully rested. She always smells like cigarettes and flowers. She makes terrible choices regarding men, but she loves her children fiercely and does the best she can for them.

Her smile makes Dewa's cheeks hot and his stomach flip-flop.

He finally drums up the courage to talk to her the fifth time he comes over. Normally, she's rushing to get out the door, heading out to work or a date, but today she's in the kitchen folding dishtowels.

"Thank you," Dewa says, feeling fluttery and formal, "for the food."

"Hmm?" Chitose's mother says. She has a breezy, slightly absentminded quality to her. "Oh, the mochi? It's nothing, dear." She had set out a plate of sweets for them.

Dewa swallows. Is she being polite? He's never had to talk to a friend's mother like this before.

"I meant the other food."

"What other food?"

"The food you had Yo give me for tutoring."

Her face twists into a politely bewildered expression. She honestly doesn't know.

"You told my mom you're tutoring me?"

"Of course," Dewa snaps. It isn't important. That Chitose's mother might think Chitose is spending his tutoring time doing something else doesn't occur to him. "Why doesn't she know about the food, Chitose?"

"What food?"

"You know what food."

"I really don't." Chitose looks slightly pained. He won't meet Dewa's gaze.

"Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not making fun of you!"

"So you're just pitying me. Great, Chitose, that's just great."

"I don't understand why you're mad at me!" Tears prick at the corners of Chitose's eyes.

"Because you lied!"

"You were eating rice and pickled radish!"

"Maybe that's what I want to eat."

"You hate it," Chitose says, in one of his moments of perfect clarity. "You should see your face. Every day, it's the same thing: white rice and pickled radish. That's all you bring. You can buy a bento- they don't cost that much- except you don't. You sit there and you eat your pickled radish, pretending like you don't hate it. I'm sorry I thought you might want something else!"

"I didn't ask for your charity." The acid in Dewa's throat is gone. "And you didn't have to lie about it. Why _did_ you lie?"

Chitose worries his lip and shrugs. "I didn't think you'd take it if I said I'd brought it."

"I wouldn't've," Dewa admits. He never likes to lie when it matters. "My parents- they aren't ever home. I think sometimes they forget I'm even there. There isn't always enough for me to have a big lunch and still eat breakfast and dinner." He likes to keep the eggs for breakfast and the meat for dinner. What is the point in having an interesting lunch when school is already so boring?

They stare at each other. Chitose's face is saying he doesn't understand why Dewa's mad, why a lie can hurt. It's baffling. It takes too much effort to stay mad at such blatant obliviousness like that.

"Don't lie to me again," Dewa says finally, resigned.

"Okay."

This is the first of a thousand promises Chitose doesn't keep.

Chitose-san loses much of her allure after Dewa finds out she doesn't actually know his name or who he is other than Chitose's friend. She is still a wonderful woman, even if Chitose seems to have caught wind of Dewa's affection.

"She doesn't have a boyfriend, you know," he teases Dewa.

Dewa raises an eyebrow. He never humors Chitose. Eventually, Chitose forgets and Dewa does, too.

Chitose doesn't stop bringing him food after that, but he does drop the façade of it being a gift. Dewa accepts the food because, Chitose is right, he _doesn't_ like pickled radishes and he has yet to learn to cook for himself.

ØØØ

"If I left, would you go with me?" Chitose asks one day. He's got a purpling bruise on his left cheekbone. He said the other kid deserved it, talking shit about his family like that. Dewa may or may not have smashed the kid's fingers in a door earlier that afternoon.

"What do you mean?"

"If I got out of here, like ran away, would you come with me?" He expects Dewa to say no. You can see it on his face, in the sad slant on his mouth.

"Your mother would miss you," is what Dewa says. What he means is: _always_.

ØØØ

For a few months in his first year if high school, Dewa thinks he might be gay.

It starts with the disappointment of his first kiss.

Yui is pretty—average, really. They are all average, really, save for Chitose. Chitose actually passes into the reasonably attractive zone. Dewa knows this from the amount of love confessions he gets from the first and even second year girls.

The fact that this ever crosses his mind, comparing a girl willing to kiss him to his closest friend is the second thing.

The kiss isn't unpleasant. Yui doesn't slobber on him or otherwise break social etiquette. She isn't in any way to blame. Ultimately, it is just plain boring. They part ways amicably.

At least, he thinks they do.

"People are talking about you, you know," Chitose tells him in between disgustingly large bites of an apple. "Want some?" He holds out the half-eaten fruit.

Dewa shakes his head and picks at his bento. There isn't much excitement when you pack it yourself. _Oh, joy, the same pickled radish and rice I packed this morning. How ever did it get there?_

"Don't you want to know what they're saying?"

_Yes_. "Not particularly. It's probably all lies, anyway."

"You mean you aren't a limp-dicked heartbreaker?"

"_What?_"

"You really did a number on Yui. Her friends are spreading all sorts of rumors about you. It's awesome."

Dewa glares.

Chitose's cough is obviously fake. "I mean horrible. Absolutely horrible. They're all terrible people for saying anything. What'd you do to her anyway?"

"I kissed her."

"Did you really? Wow, good for you, Dewa." Chitose slides an umaibo across the table. Dewa extricates it from its noisy package and bites into its crunchy deliciousness.

"I didn't enjoy it," he admits.

"Oh." Chitose's shoulders slump. He seems very interested in this conversation. Dewa would rather not talk about it, to be honest. "You didn't tell her, did you?"

"Um."

"No, Dewa, no, no, no. You can't tell girls they're bad at kissing!"

"I didn't tell her she was bad at it. I just said I didn't like it."

Chitose considers that for a moment. "You don't like kissing?"

Dewa shrugs.

The three girls Chitose convinces to kiss him do nothing to change Dewa's confusion.

The perverted upperclassman Dewa gets to make out with him a week later does.

ØØØ

Her name is Kikuchi Kaori. Black hair, brown eyes, taller than average. She isn't exactly beautiful, but she has an energy to her, a certain charisma that draws you to her. Or so most people say. Dewa isn't enamored by her. Chitose is.

The reason Dewa would never say Chitose toyed with people is because he has seen what a real manipulator is like. A real manipulator changes the people they use, slips right under their skin and makes them do things they wouldn't otherwise. They are not indecisive.

They are not like Chitose.

ØØØ

There aren't any bruises Dewa can see. There isn't anything other than Chitose's memory lapses, his odd excuses, and that worryingly fond smile he gets when Dewa asks a question he won't answer.

Dewa's parents never hit him. They never yell at him or punish him. They're not around enough to do any of that.

_There is more than one kind of abuse._

Why does he care so much?

ØØØ

Dewa loses his virginity more out of a feeling that he should than any real desire.

The orgasm he gets feels good, but back scratches feel good, too. Dewa's never done those just for the hell of it. Where's the magic everyone's always talking about? Is this what he's supposed to be daydreaming of, his body moving against someone else's? If it is, it's overrated.

ØØØ

It would have been worse if Chitose hadn't broken it off. Then he would be stuck with her for longer. He'd be even more broken than he is now.

Abusers don't let you go. You escape them or you perish. Chitose escapes Kaori physically but he is still trapped in the mindset she left him in.

It's painful to watch his deterioration. Chitose seems to lose a part of himself every day, becoming more and more a stereotype until Dewa's left wondering whether the person he befriended even exists anymore.

ØØØ

"You can tell your boyfriend he can come, too," the salesgirl passing out fliers says, smiling sweetly.

Dewa gives her a disgruntled look and makes a note to do no such thing. It isn't like Chitose, who's talking to her short-skirted companion, would listen if he did.

The annoying part is she doesn't believe what she said. She thinks he's in love with Chitose, and it's a one-sided relationship. She wants to needle him, make him squirm. All because her job is boring.

You would think people would realize calling Chitose Dewa's boyfriend wouldn't be the least bit witty. You would. People do it all the time, often when Chitose is making a fool of himself chatting some girl up. Dewa isn't sure whether he is more annoyed because they think he is responsible for the idiot or because it hits too close to home.

Dewa tosses the flier to the ground.

ØØØ

Homra offers them a place after Chitose gets them embroiled in a fight with a couple of low-level thugs. Chitose doesn't quite have the sense not to start shit and Dewa has too much of a mean streak to stop him, so this is a bit of a regular occurrence. It is admirable, Chitose's sense of justice, and it is downright foolhardy. Dewa doesn't suffer from the same moral proclivities. He does, however, have a strong dose of common sense. You could say they balance each other out. You could also say Dewa is the reason Chitose hasn't had his head bashed in to date.

Well, now he's Homra's problem. Rather, he is less Dewa's problem because he is protected by an Aura neither of them yet understands and an unsavory assortment of borderline thugs.

They fit right in.

ØØØ

"Are you going to shake my hand or not?"

These are the first and most important words the Red King ever says to him. Never again does he look at Dewa with the slightest interest.

ØØØ

Violence is their lifeblood. Dewa has read books on gangs. He understands they are about the weak trying to feel strong and violence is a way to show what little power they have. The Red Clan is that and more: they have actual power. They make people afraid. Even alone, a few of them- Yata, Kusanagi-san, the King- terrify people.

Despite this, they don't kill. If there's one rule the lower echelons of Homra follow, it's that.

Dewa doesn't want to kill anyone. He just thinks it's an odd rule to follow.

Homra's not like the other gangs that prowl and plague Shizume. Totsuka and Yata think of Homra as a family. Dewa doesn't think of Homra like a family.

What would Dewa's parents say if they knew what he did in his spare time? They are around more these days, his father's back injury keeping him at home while the lines on his mother's forehead deepen. Dewa visits them every few weeks to ease the guilt of being one of the few Clansmen with living, reasonably healthy parents. He even gives his mother his PDA number.

Are the King's parents still alive? Someone had to give birth to him.

ØØØ

Dewa doesn't share Chitose's aversion to Bando. They aren't that different, and that is probably why Chitose hates him. No one is that different in Homra- most of them are broken inside and barely healed. Some have suffered physical damage. Others, like Chitose and Bando, have suffered mental.

It is common in gangs, which is what Homra is at its core. Gangs attract the weak, the defenseless, and the lonely.

It would be easier if Dewa were broken like them, instead of simply fed up with the world and its injustices. Then he wouldn't have to be like Kamamoto, following and worrying over a damaged, destructive personality.

ØØØ

Dewa never meets Fushimi under equitable terms. He catches glimpses of the younger man, certainly, though only as a belligerent. His name is never mentioned, not even by Bando, who knew him once upon a time.

The story comes out in bits and pieces from multiple sources. Chitose doesn't listen; he won't hear other people's problems these days. Dewa, though, deals in information, and Fushimi didn't just destroy Yata's trust when he left.

The story goes like this: there were once two boys who hated the world. One was smart but cynical; the other was angry all the time. The only thing they had in common was their hatred. Despite this, they became the best of friends. One day they left their old lives behind and struck out on their own.

Things didn't go well or maybe it was their intention all along and they ended up on the street.

One day, an old friend of the angry boy took pity on the two and asked his King to offer them a place in his service. The boys agreed.

Here the story differed depending on who was telling it. One person said the cynical boy was a bad fit, another that the two boys grew apart. The King's jester thinks he might be to blame. Always, there was the unspoken aspect of jealousy.

The cynical boy left and joined a rival King's service. There he has stayed to this very day.

The two boys never forgot each other, however. The cynical boy's betrayal ate away at the angry boy, leaving him angrier- and sadder- than before. Their meetings are rare these days, but you don't have to look hard to see the scars they left on each other's hearts.

There are reasons Dewa leaves Yata alone.

ØØØ

"Do you try to change all of your friends?" Totsuka asks. He has his hands folded under his chin and the same breezy smile as always. It unnerves Dewa, though he doesn't know why.

"You ask the strangest questions, Totsuka-san."

"Chitose-kun is older than you, isn't he?" Dewa nods. "Yet you look after him."

"He gets into trouble a lot. Surely, you remember that."

Totsuka tips his head and laughs.

"I do. He's very popular with women. Other people might get upset one of these days if Chitose-kun keeps taking all the pretty ladies."

The thing with Totsuka is you can never know what he's thinking. He deviates from telling wild tales to being a flake to having no sense of personal safety. He seems an idiot, but the way he talks sometimes…Dewa gets the feeling he's more calculating than any of them suspect.

"Most of them can't talk to girls, of course, but it's fun to watch them try, don't you think?"

Secondhand embarrassment isn't something Dewa particularly enjoys, no.

Thankfully, Yata and Kamamoto start one of their explosively loud fights then and Dewa manages to get away without answering any of Totsuka's not quite invasive questions.

ØØØ

Chitose is the most aggravating asshole Dewa has ever met.

Currently, it is two a.m. Chitose is lying on Dewa's floor, humming to himself too loudly to be unobtrusive. Dewa has work in the morning, which Chitose _knows_ but either doesn't care about or has an as-yet-unmentioned reason for not wanting to go back to his own apartment. Likely, it involves a girl and a blunder on Chitose's part because that man makes disgracefully stupid life choices.

"I'm going to bed," Dewa announces.

"Okay."

Dewa waits, willing Chitose to take the hint. Chitose, likely feeling Dewa's disgruntled gaze, turns to look at him and smiles lazily.

"Are you waiting for me to tuck you in?" he asks.

_I want you to go home, you fuck. I'm tired and you're still here and this situation is making me very hot and uncomfortable for reasons I don't want to elaborate. Yes, I'd really like you to go home._ Dewa, of course, doesn't say this because he is very aware of facts, thanks, and doesn't want Chitose's pity. Or interest. Who knows with Chitose?

Dewa hates that Chitose is such a tease. He can never tell when it is a game and when Chitose is genuinely serious about his intentions, if there is a difference. There isn't. Chitose doesn't do things in halves. It is his motivations that change, not his actions.

To say Chitose toys with people would be disingenuous. Toying implies enjoying making other people do your whim. There is no enjoyment for Chitose. He is running ahead of the storm that is his insides, trying to prove that he has some control over a situation that ended years ago.

Dewa should have a Ph.D. in the psychology of Chitose's tortured mind. He would, if there weren't this massive blindspot in regards to himself.

Chitose pauses in the doorframe and turns back.

"Or you can let me fuck you," he says and Dewa can't tell if he's joking.

"Go _home_, Chitose."

ØØØ

"You don't live here," Dewa says in what is ultimately a futile effort. As always, Chitose waltzes right in, opens the refrigerator and grabs a beer. He doesn't ask, because of course he doesn't. Dewa just hopes it's some of the beer he bought and not his roommates'.

Dewa does not live alone because, unlike some people, he knows how to balance expenses and he feels no need to waste money for privacy he isn't going to use. His roommates are acquaintances who put up with Chitose's frequent visits, though they gawked the first few times, looking from Chitose to him and back as though it was really such a surprise.

He could get an apartment with another Clansman but he dislikes most of them and they tend not to be of the domestic type. Dewa would also prefer to get his security deposit back. Random strangers it is.

Chitose smiles as he shoves a second bottle across the counter.

"You love me."

The noise Dewa makes is noncommittal.

Chitose tips the brim of Dewa's hat, bringing his gaze downwards, straight into Chitose's unfairly pretty eyes.

"Don't you deny it."

Dewa is probably imagining it, but Chitose doesn't sound like he's joking when he says it.

ØØØ

Finding desire when he thinks he can't feel it is the most terrifying thing in the world. Chitose lives and breathes desire, is desire, and Dewa feels like a fraud with his intermittent pulses of interest.

Once he thought he didn't like anyone at all. Men, women, and everything in between or not at all held no special allure for him. He didn't understand, and he didn't want to. Then he realized he had felt it all along but so rarely and so differently that he'd never thought of it as it was.

Now he's in love and he's more terrified than anything because he can't divorce desire from love and this isn't what he wants. He wants to be that kid again who kissed Yui and knew he didn't like it. He wants to be losing his virginity to an upperclassman because he had to lose it sometime and it didn't matter, he wouldn't enjoy it anyway. He wants to look at Chitose and wonder why he spends so much time around someone he barely even likes.

Love is not fun. It's torturous, watching his best friend and love destroy himself over someone who never deserved to know him. Everywhere Dewa looks now, he sees the disastrous effects of love, unrequited, scorned, doomed. He's part of their number, these luckless fools, and he can't escape.

_I understand you now_, he thinks, looking at Chitose, at Kusanagi, at Yata. _I understand why you do this to yourself. _

ØØØ

If Chitose is such a terrible friend, why doesn't Dewa leave?

He does. The real question is: why does he come back?

Chitose needs him. For no reason Dewa can discern, the idiot's attached himself to him, and he doesn't do well when Dewa's not around.

Have you ever seen someone destroy themselves? Most people haven't. It's unpleasant, messy, terrifying. You think, if only they did this or tried that or changed their way of thinking, they'd be okay again. Then you get mad when they don't get better on your schedule or at all. Not many people stick around.

Dewa's watched so many people leave out of Chitose's life. His only real male friends now are his Clansmen and his female friends...they're nonexistent. Unless you count Anna, which Dewa doesn't. Grown men aren't friends with little girls.

The truth is, Homra has become Chitose's support network. Not a great one- Bando and Yata give as much as they take- but one all the same. Chitose relies on them because they are what he has.

And yet Dewa hangs around. He's better than they are at managing Chitose's moods. He understands why Chitose is the way he is. It's information he secrets away, not just because he doesn't want to break Chitose's already damaged trust, but because he-

He doesn't want to be replaced.

Dewa's not the best, not at anything. He's better than average but he's not great or exceptional at anything. Except at understanding Chitose. Caring about him. It's a specialized art, one Dewa's become proficient at simply by hanging on.

It's not love.

No, it's definitely not love.

ØØØ

"Aren't you afraid we're going to destroy each other?" Dewa asks idly. They're sitting in a yakiniku restaurant. It's one of the few times they're out in public and alone. Dewa meant to enjoy the night, he did, but the sake's made his tongue loose.

"I leave the worrying to you," Chitose answers, watching Dewa turn the marinated beef over on the gridiron. The kimchi's already done, but the meat takes longer.

"You mean the _thinking_."

"You're so sweet to me, Dewa-kun."

"Shut up."

Chitose smiles.

ØØØ

Most of Homra makes a nuisance of themselves. Not Dewa. He actually helps out. Not with the bar, since Kusanagi-san is picky about who he lets tend it, but with other things, shadier things. Things most of the other Clansmen don't even know about. It's convenient for everyone that Kusanagi's sources remain hidden.

Dewa has just delivered a report and is stepping out when he notices the brown-haired woman gazing up at the sign.

He coughs to catch her attention.

"Oh, you again." Her eyes are wide with surprise; her tone somewhere between welcoming and resigned.

"Is this where he goes," she asks, "when he isn't at home?"

Dewa glances at Bar Homra. It doesn't look too seedy from the outside. It is still a bar.

"Occasionally."

He stands there awkwardly. It is almost certain she has no idea Homra isn't a regular band of delinquents. Most of Shizume only knows of Kings as half-whispered rumors, not living, breathing legends. The Clans that form around them are the second most obvious, yet least known facet of their daily existence.

Chitose's mother tilts her head and smiles wearily. Dewa always wondered whether Chitose got his energy from his father or if raising three sons alone took everything from her.

"Thank you," she says, "for taking care of my son."

Dewa makes to protest. She stops him.

"I tried to do right by my boys, you know? I never thought it'd be so hard, raising them by myself. Now Ryo's gone and Naoki's locked up. Yo doesn't tell me much about his life. He's into something dangerous, I'm almost certain."

"We both are."

She nods, as though it doesn't matter. He was half in love with her once.

"I know. I'm glad you're there with him. Whatever he gets into, you'll be there to get him out, won't you?"

Does she know his name? The answer to that question is suddenly incredibly important. Is she so desperate to have one child succeed that she's grateful for any help or does she actually know who he is?

"You're a good person."

She will always hold an allure for him. She will always be that quietly elegant woman. But he will never again question how such a kind person fell into this situation in life.

Chitose Masako is a terrible judge of character. Clearly, this is a family trait.

He will protect her son. That was never in question.

"I need to go."

"Would you like some daifuku? I brought it for Yo, but it seems he isn't here." She lifts the wrapped box clutched in her left hand.

Dewa doesn't want her food.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I really have to go."

ØØØ

He runs into her too often after that, in the supermarket, on the street, in places most people wouldn't expect him to be. At first he thinks she is following him. Then he wonders if that is a bad thing. After all, all she wants is to reconnect with her son.

"Chitose-san, may I help you with something?"

"Oh!" She looks flustered, though she smiles. "No, no, I'm quite alright. Go back to what you were doing."

"Chitose-san, I insist." He takes the basket she's holding in her arms. Inside are basic groceries: vegetables, soba noodles, and beer.

"Thank you, Demura."

"Dewa."

"Hmm?" She smells like fresh laundry.

"My name is Dewa."

"Dewa," she repeated, giving him an apologetic smile. "I went out to buy ingredients for dinner. It seems I've bought too much. Have you eaten yet?"

This is how Dewa finds himself sitting in Chitose's mother's kitchen, watching her make yakisoba and talk about her day. He doesn't want to be there exactly as much as he does; yet he hasn't reached the equilibrium of not-caring. It is a disconcertingly normal feeling.

"Here," she says, placing a stack of pictures in front of him. "I've been waiting to show these to someone for ages."

They are pictures of skinny, brunet children who have to be Chitose and his brothers. In one, they are chasing each other around a yard. In another, Chitose is crying, pointing at his brother, while Ryo crosses his arms and looks mad. They are brats, and they are adorable.

He tells her so. She laughs.

"That's how all little boys are. Then they grow up and break your heart." She lights a cigarette and takes a drag. Coughs and blows the smoke out. "You probably think I'm pathetic, wasting my time talking to you."

"No." _Yes._

"The thing is, I don't know when any of them are coming back. I messed up. I know that. But I didn't expect life to turn out this way.

"I'm their mother. I want life to be better for them than it is for me. And then I look and I see that it's worse."

"Yo isn't doing that bad," Dewa says. "He's got a job as a host. He makes good money." He doesn't mention Homra. Chitose will have to tell her that on his own.

"That's good to know. Is he living with someone?" The look she gives him is pointed.

"He has his own apartment. The place isn't the best, but he says the rent is affordable." Chitose said no such thing. He never asks Dewa for help paying his rent, either. Between Chitose's myriad short-term relationships and the assurance that the only other person with a key is Dewa, it can be assumed that he is living alone. The place isn't particularly spacious. This kitchen is as large as the bedroom. It isn't a big kitchen.

There are things people want to hear, and _I have a key to Yo's apartment that I never use because he might be doing tandem horizontal exercises at any given time_ is not one of them. Most likely, she is asking if he is fucking her son, which he is but not on any sort of regular or exclusive basis. If they approach that subject, the best Dewa can say is that Chitose came up clean on his latest STD test. Dewa knows this because he always takes him to get tested. Chitose claims it's a bonding experience.

"But you see him often?" The pointed look morphs into one of hopefulness.

"Almost every day."

How many half-truths can he feed her before she stops listening to him? Chitose's real life isn't the sort you discuss over a dinner table. His mother's isn't either.

"Yo loves you," Dewa says, keeping his eyes on the table. "I think he doesn't come to see you because he's afraid you'd be disappointed."

He expects her to say she wouldn't be. She doesn't.

"Is he in trouble?"

"Not really. There are some…things he needs to work out." _He's got supernatural powers and the backing of one of the most powerful men in this city, and he can't function without me. He looks alright, but even my mother taught me not all scars are on the outside. He needs help but he's not going to get it because he won't._

"You'll help him, won't you?" She's ignorant, not naïve.

"I can try."

"Can I keep this one?" he asks, lifting up a picture.

"Of course."

Chitose's fourteen-year-old face smiles back at him, his arm looped over a friend's shoulders. There is dirt on his chin and a scratch on his cheek. He's wearing the same shirt he had on the first time they met.

ØØØ

The desperation is what gets to him the most. Chitose needs him, needs this, this poisonous _thing_ they have between them, and Dewa won't deny him. The sex isn't seductive for him, not the way Chitose's emotions are. Desperation, need, pleasure, these follow Chitose everywhere but here, when the two of them are alone, tangled in sheets, they're most obvious.

At one point, when Chitose is sated and veering into sleep, he rests his head against Chitose's brow and breathes.

Chitose grabs the back of his neck, holding them together. Dewa's breath turns shaky and he wants to pull away. It's too much, too close to being something real. They're too messed up for real. They're-

Chitose's spinning circles on the back of his neck.

_We can't be like that_, Dewa wants to stay. _We need to separate friendship from, from _this_. You're tangling everything up._

Dewa wants this. That's the worst part. He wants to be more for Chitose and erase all the damage Kaori did. He wants to give Chitose pleasure and wake up next to him every day. He wants to love him like normal people do. But they messed up. Chitose was damaged when they started this- that's _why_ they started this- and now there's too much baggage to make everything right. Dewa's made too many mistakes that Chitose is too quick to forgive.

That doesn't change their friendship. Dewa's always tried to separate their friendship from _this_. Their friendship is nine years of school, street fights, and Homra. _This_ is Kaori's poison, her thousand substitutes, and sweaty sheets. This is Dewa leaving when the poison's gone too deep and Chitose's halfway to losing himself. This is Dewa returning, knowing Chitose will be waiting because there's no one else.

He will protect Chitose with everything he has. Because Chitose is good and he cares, and that is rare indeed in this world.

He stays in the morning, for a little while.

_I love you_, he should say, _but I don't love this_.

He says nothing.

Which of them needs to change more? Does anyone know? Something's got to give, but it isn't going to be their relationship. They're stuck together, possibly for life.

Dewa's terrified their friendship is going to destroy them both.

ØØØ

"Where does Kusanagi-san get this information?"

Bando hits him lightly over the head, because he knows but he'll let Dewa get away with it since Shohei doesn't. Dewa smiles, not ashamed for all that he should be. Not too many of the other Clansmen treat Dewa this way, and he has to admit he likes it.

To be honest, Dewa likes Bando. Chitose doesn't and that's fine because Chitose is one of those passionate people with friendliness and hatred spilling out of their hearts in equal measure. Dewa doesn't have that, doesn't want that, but he does have an unusual affection for difficult people. Like Bando.

Someone else could probably expand on that and say Dewa seeks out difficult people in hopes that it'll counterbalance his own difficult nature. Or they might say he's just a terrible person, and he prefers to be around others like him. Dewa isn't the type to psychoanalyze himself too deeply. He knows what kind of answers he'll uncover if he does.

Shohei's found their proof.

There's something sinister in hiding weapons in crates of candy. The candy's good, though, at least the bar Dewa's chewing on, so that's a plus. Shohei pockets a few, which Dewa's perfectly alright with. No need for high morals when you're rifling through a gangster's stolen cargo.

A sound makes them all turn.

The traitor gives them a second to recognize him before they're on the ground.

Shohei's the first to get back up, letting out a heartfelt groan. A funny taste, like licking a battery, hovers in the back of Dewa's throat from Fushimi's Blue Aura blast. Asshole.

He shakes Bando's shoulder. He's face-down on the cement floor of the warehouse. Fushimi must have meant to stun them without a fight. The traitor's nowhere to be seen.

"We should go."

They're gone before the other Blues arrive.

If Dewa had to divide people into categories, one would be the people who don't hesitate to fight and another those who do. Homra mostly belongs to the former category; the Blues to the latter. It's obvious in their reluctance, their reliance on words over actions. Oh, there's one or two who don't fit the bill, just like there are pacifists in Homra, but the majority are right cowards.

Homra outnumbers the Blues, but they don't have the same structure or practice. Most have never fought in large groups or had to listen to anyone other than themselves. Kusanagi's directing from inside, the King's fighting the Blue King, and Kamamoto's got the field.

It's interesting, to say the least.

He looks at the Ashinaka students and he thinks, _fuck you, you fucking rich kids. You go to the best school in the city, and you're so ignorant it's laughable. A man is dead, and you want to know why people are fighting. All your perfect chances are worth nothing._

All your perfect chances and one of you killed the best man any of us ever met.

He regrets not liking Totsuka very much when he was alive. Totsuka had a penetrating quality that made you uneasy if you had something to hide. Dewa always had something to hide.

He didn't cry at Totsuka's funeral, but he saw who did. Totsuka always knew what people really wanted. He saw through Bando when Bando tried to run from Shohei and their shared past.

_What are you running from, Bando_, they had all wondered. _Someone actually likes you, Bando. All of you._ Love. Bando had been running from the feelings he had felt and still feels for another boy-turned-man and only Totsuka had been able to see it.

Who was it who faced down an assassin because Chitose was too foolish and broken to remember a promise made to an equally broken woman? Who was it let a boy try to kill him because he saw the pain before an experienced animal rescuer could? Who ran, a hundred thousand times, from danger just so it would pursue him and not someone else? The answer was always Totsuka.

His murderer had laughed while Totsuka lay dying, so fuck these rich kids and their confusion. Fuck their fear and their resistance. Fuck them all. Servants packed these kids perfect little bentos filled with all sorts of delicious things, while Dewa had eaten rice and pickled vegetables. One of these kids had become a murderer and Dewa, he- he had come to wreak vengeance.

ØØØ

_It's fine, it's fine. It'll all work out somehow._

It doesn't work out. A week after the King's death and the one holding together the best is Eric, and Dewa hates him all the more for it. Their King is gone; Homra dissolved. The people who should hold them together the best, Kusanagi-san and Yata, are falling apart. Kamamoto, at twenty-one, is responsible nearly full time for Anna-chan. The others try to help where they can but there aren't many of them these days and responsibility isn't what they're accustomed to. Everyone else is gone.

So Dewa leaves, too.

He wants time to himself. Chitose has gone back to picking fights. They aren't always for good reasons. Dewa fears that one day the Aura won't be enough to protect him.

The worry, the fear of an unknown future, is weighing on him. So he leaves, going to Yamanashi, even to Fujiyoshida. He stays in a hostel where no one knows him and pretends that meant something. In all, it is a trip of pretend: Dewa pretends he's a tourist; he pretends he actually wants to climb Mt. Fuji; he pretends he isn't numb inside from a grief he doesn't want to feel.

They had to break up sometime, he reasons when he ignores Chitose's messages. It's better this way, he thinks when he's been back three days and still hasn't answered. He'll latch onto someone else, Dewa reminds himself when Chitose is right there and Dewa looks through him.

It'll take some time to adjust, but then he'll be okay. They'll both be okay.


	2. Chapter 2

Chitose has no idea when or where he first met Dewa. Dewa says it was at school when he was twelve and Chitose was thirteen. Supposedly, they were in the same class but only started talking to each other in second year. Chitose doesn't know about that.

His earliest memories are of the two of them around a library table, maybe alone, maybe not. Dewa is explaining something and berating Chitose when he doesn't get it. Most of the time Chitose does get it. He only lets Dewa think he doesn't to keep their study sessions going.

Aggravating Dewa entertains Chitose more than it should. Years from now, when Chitose understands himself a whole lot better, he'll realize he had a crush on Dewa within a month of meeting him. For now, all he knows is he wants the guy's attention and playing stupid is an excellent way to get it.

Chitose is hardly a genius. He never would have gone to high school if Dewa hadn't nagged him. Honestly, Chitose expects nothing from himself. He doesn't even expect to see any of his friends after they graduate junior high. Most will stay in Shizume City working menial jobs until their backs hunch over and they shrivel up into grandparents. A few will end up dead before then, but what can you do? If you wanted a good life, you got rich or you got out of Shizume.

Dewa will be different. Dewa will go on to high school, then get a low level job at a company and stay with it until he is seventy. After that, he'll retire if he doesn't suffer a heart attack from overwork or hang himself.

It takes Chitose a year to figure out this isn't Dewa at all. Dewa's irritable, cynical exterior hides a brash interior in love with violence and harboring a deep loyalty to a select few. He isn't the straight-laced megane consumed by boring hobbies people expect him to be. His father is a luckless businessman. Dewa is doing everything he can to become a different man.

It is about this time that Chitose's interest in him sharpens. Here is a diamond in the rough: someone who isn't going to let himself mire in Shizume's filth but who also isn't going to abandon it for better sights.

ØØØ

You could say Chitose's trust issues started when he was a kid. He always knew his brothers had a different father, a man who never visited the house but sent expensive gifts. He couldn't have been that old when someone, a relative or his mother's friend, let a few words slip and he found out why none of those nice presents were ever for him.

_Your father died in the Kagutsu Crater._ That is what his mother always told him. _He was a good man. He loved you._

He was six when he found out this was a lie.

His father is alive and well. Chitose has even known him his whole life.

He is their neighbor.

ØØØ

Never let it be said that Chitose is unaware he's a hypocrite. A _jealous_ hypocrite.

Chitose slings an arm over Dewa's shoulders, ignoring the disgruntled shrug he gets in return.

"Whatcha guys talking about?"

Dewa says something, not that Chitose's listening. He's settled for staring down Yamaguchi, who purses his lips in return. _I don't like you_ goes unsaid.

Yamaguchi Kazutoshi is Dewa's not _best_ friend but something close, Chitose figures, since he's the only person Dewa willingly spends time with other than the librarian and Chitose himself, of course. He's also a goddamn prick.

Yamaguchi's got light brown hair, sallow skin, and a permanently prissy expression. He's thin to the point of making other people uncomfortable, he's got a slightly nasal voice, and he's a dick. He's smarter than Chitose's whole family combined, a fact he likes to impress on Chitose as often as possible (and, okay, Chitose's brothers aren't geniuses and he isn't, either, but rude). Despite these and numerous other bad points, Dewa likes to spend time with him. If only Yamaguchi didn't go to their _school_.

"He wants to fuck you." Chitose doesn't feel like being polite today.

"And?"

No _"are you sure?"_ Or _"really"_, just _"and"_.

"I don't like him."

Dewa snorts. "Good for you."

Right. Dewa doesn't need his approval any more than Chitose needs Dewa's. Yamaguchi can go fuck himself. Dewa certainly isn't gonna do it.

ØØØ

Something dark and mean lives inside Chitose. It's quiet normally but roars to life every so often, snapping viciously at his insides as it demands blood.

Its name is jealousy.

Chitose is glad when Dewa doesn't show an interest in anyone else. He likes it when Dewa gets pissy and ever so slightly envious when he flirts with someone else. He wants that attention, same as he always has.

None of this is polite or kind, or even fair because Chitose's feelings for Dewa aren't polite or kind, or fair. They are vicious, possessive, snarling _mine, mine, mine_ in Chitose's head.

He needs that attention and he needs it to be from Dewa.

ØØØ

"You go back a ways, huh?" Her voice disapproves. She probably does, too, on some level. They've only just met, and she's already telling him what she thinks about Dewa. Kikuchi-chan's candor is endearing, even if her meaning is something he's heard a million times before.

Dewa takes getting used to. People like to comment how much of a contrast they are because people are shallow and rarely care about getting to know anyone but themselves.

"He's so serious," they'll say or "How do you manage to get along?" like Dewa is an odious troll no one can like. He can be a dick, sure, but Chitose can be a dick. They've known each other for a while now, ten years if Chitose is counting right (he probably isn't), so there is a lot of history. Chitose doesn't have to pretend he has a nice, happy past or that he is the person you had that first impression of. The list of Dewa's good traits isn't long. He's by no means a great person or even likable by most people's standards, but he's a good friend.

Dewa keeps him honest. He doesn't accept Chitose's excuses or his facades. If Chitose is doing something stupid, Dewa tells him straight up. Once, that was a very rare thing for anyone to do.

In all honesty, then, Chitose has no clue _why_ he wants Dewa. He's a dick, we've got history, he's a good friend- those are all excuses, conjectures about something Chitose can't understand. You could say Chitose squandered his chances, that he made so many mistakes, driven so many people away that there isn't anyone other than Dewa left, and it still wouldn't be the right answer. This started before that.

There is nothing great or remarkable about Dewa, not compared to some of the people Chitose's met. He isn't engaging or handsome. He doesn't offer anything Chitose couldn't get elsewhere. But, God, does he make Chitose _burn_.

Of course, he's seventeen and half the world makes him _burn_. Including Kikuchi-chan who has gorgeous, midnight hair that waterfalls down her back and eyes he could drown in.

"A bit."

ØØØ

What is it about Chitose and getting first impressions wrong? When Kaori was still Kikuchi-chan, he thought she was sweet, a little tragic even.

He was wrong. Kaori is beautiful in the way an apex predator is beautiful. She is a panther slinking through the night like ink, an eagle extending its claws murderously towards its prey, a lionfish telling you with its very existence that it is poison personified. He is the prey too slow, too blind to realize he's been caught.

She is vicious and growing more beautiful every day. Chitose's breath hitches when he looks at her, the sunlight dancing on her lovely face making him instantly forget all her cruel words. Her delicate-looking nails never left marks on his skin, but there is always that threat that they can. Her perfect white teeth are weapons, too. Once, as punishment, she bites his tongue hard. Another time she sank her teeth into his ear hard enough to make it bleed.

Physical punishment is rare. It is her words that truly hurt.

"Did you give Itsumi-chan my note?"

"Yes," he says.

Kaori turns and reaches a hand up to stroke his ear. She pouts, her lips luxurious.

"I don't think you did," she teases in a sing-song.

"I did."

He forgets the conversation. He knows he gave Itsumi the note.

"Itsumi-chan says she didn't get my note." Kaori's pout has returned.

"I gave it to her."

"Did you?"

"You told me she didn't get it. You made me think-"

"It's only a joke, Chitose-kun," Kaori says, cutting him off. She smiles but her eyes flash a warning. "Don't take it so seriously."

"Don't take it so seriously" is a mantra she repeats. It means: _I tell you what to do and what to feel. _

There are other things she says, words that he knows aren't quite right.

"Don't get so angry," she'll say when Chitose's barely raised his voice.

"You shouldn't have made me mad," she says after she throws his PDA and his headphones against the wall, after she tears through his bedroom, after she spreads vicious lies about him to everyone he knows.

"What's your point?" she says when he tries to start a conversation about anything that isn't her.

"I love you," she says when he's thinking about leaving.

"I don't want you wearing that," when he thinks he looks good.

"I don't want you hanging out with them. Especially Dewa. Stay away from him," when he tells her he has plans.

"You're trash," for no reason at all.

Small things, things people would laugh at if Chitose told them. Unimportant things. She is a girl and he is a boy, and that means the words can't hurt.

She is so beautiful. What does it matter if she has a few edges?

Dewa doesn't like her. Dewa likes hardly anybody. Chitose isn't sure some days that Dewa likes _him_.

He knows Dewa is right. Compared to some, their "problems" are nothing. Compared to a normal relationship, what she does isn't good.

The problem is: she never hits him. Okay, she does, but it's never like that.

_It's always like that._

He's bigger than her, stronger, harder to hurt. There is his pride, saying no, she's too small, it isn't the same. No one will believe you if you say anything or they'll brush it off because a girl would never do that. She's smaller; you're letting her hurt you.

Who decided size was important? You must be this much taller to be an abusive fuck. Any shorter and your partner's word is a joke.

Dewa never laughs, not that Chitose ever tells him. What could he say? Help me, help me, I'm dying, but, oh, if it isn't the most wonderful way to go? He wants to say something but he remembers the laughter from others. They were people he thought of as friends, people who laughed because that was what was expected of them and that was what they thought he wanted.

It is so funny, how she treats him.

ØØØ

"You want to fuck him," she says, laughing. "That ugly friend of yours with the glasses. You want your cock in his ass, riding him like a goddamned pony.

"I pity you, Yo. You actually think he might want you back. I've seen the looks he gives you. He knows all about your twisted little fantasies, and he's disgusted by you."

Chitose's cringing, and he's still not smaller than her.

"What, you think normal people would want you? You're so delusional, Yo. If they really knew what you were like, no one would ever come near you."

Chitose closes his eyes. Years later, Kaori's words are still with him. His memories of her are patchy, but the words are always clear.

ØØØ

He forgets their eight month anniversary. He didn't know eight month anniversaries were a thing, but she's so mad and she yells and yells and yells, and everyone thinks it's so funny, this tiny, little girl fuming at her boyfriend.

Dewa doesn't find it funny. He doesn't intervene, but he does pull Chitose away and take the bus with him home. They don't talk about it.

Kaori is mad the next day and the next, and soon it gets so bad Chitose doesn't go to school. She sends him angry messages, telling him how stupid he is, how she can't believe he forgot, how he dare not try to talk to her ever again. Interspaced with these are cutesy voicemails saying how much she misses him, can't he just apologize for what he did?

He's apologized a hundred times. His apologies only make her sneer.

Chitose doesn't know how to fix what he did. He buys her gifts to make up for it but she throws them in his face or on the ground. He apologizes again and again, but it isn't enough. She calls him stupid, unlovable, worthless, word after word, after word, the same ones she always uses, the ones that stick in his mind and echo with cold laughter or hot, hot anger. He's terrified to go back to school and see her again, so he stays in bed and pretends to be sick. His mother believes him: the guilt is so strong he throws up night after night.

Dewa drops by, looking tetchier each time. They sit together in Chitose's room and don't really speak. Dewa doesn't want to pry, and Chitose doesn't know how to tell him his presence eases the anxiety that's taken permanent hold in his chest. So he leans against Dewa even though Dewa doesn't like being touched and he takes shaky breaths, and he doesn't tell him what's going on. Sometimes he puts his head on Dewa's bony shoulder and closes his eyes, and lets himself drift away.

The third day Chitose misses school, Dewa breaks his silence.

"You need to break up with her," he says.

So Chitose sends her a message and waits for the fallout.

After the second week of endless calls, some pleading, some viciously angry, Chitose gets a new number. He still checks the old one occasionally, until the SIM card goes missing. Dewa claims to have nothing to do with it.

He feels lucky she doesn't show up at his house.

Dewa says she's bad for him and she always has been. Chitose agrees in words. He trusts Dewa.

At night, though, he dreams about her. He wakes up most mornings thinking about her, remembering the feel of her hair, her hands, her legs. He expects things to get easier in a few days, weeks, months. She's just one girl. He'll replace her soon enough.

This doesn't happen.

ØØØ

Puberty takes pity on Yamaguchi. He loses his sallowness, grows two-dozen centimeters, and ends up with a halfway decent face. His personality, however, does not change. Thankfully, he becomes obsessed with exams their third year and doesn't have time for a social life, so Chitose doesn't have to deal with him.

Chitose's exams don't go great, not that he was planning on going to university anyway. He convinces his boss to change his part-time shifts to full-time and slides easily into living by himself. Yamaguchi's disappeared, Dewa's got his own job, and everything is going _fine_ when she drops by.

There's no warning, he just opens the door one day to find her standing there, smiling prettily. Her dress is anything but modest, her hair is as fine as silk, and her voice makes him shiver.

"I want us to get back together," Kaori says, trailing her finger along the rim of the glass he gave her. The water inside sloshes slightly. She looks up at him, her long eyelashes thick and lovely.

She's expecting an answer. He doesn't have one to give.

With a huff, she puts the glass down. "You could at least answer me, Yo."

He's breathing too shallowly, his lungs trying to keep up with the staccato beat of his heart, which hurts, oh, God, it hurts. He doesn't want her here; he doesn't want her in his apartment. He wants her gone but he can't make her go. She still has a hold on him, and he doesn't have the strength to make her leave.

Can you die of fear? Adrenaline rushing to your heart too fast, making it beat like a quadruple pattern until the muscle destroys itself? If it's possible, let it happen now.

She goes on without him.

"Are you still friends with that Dewa guy? What am I saying, of course, you are. You've always been bad at picking out people good for you."

"Don't tell me you've got yourself a new girlfriend."

He shakes his head. No one would call any of the women he's slept with his girlfriend. His heartbeat, having slowed for a second picks up again.

"Then why haven't you answered any of my calls? Do you think you're too good for me? Like someone else is going to actually _like_ you?"

He can't answer. He can't even think.

Face twisted in anger, her hand raised, she takes a step towards him. He flinches without thought, puts the table between them.

Kaori's face softens. Her hand returns to her side.

"I didn't mean it, Chitose-kun. You know I would never hurt you."

He looks at Kaori, and he realizes- he doesn't believe her anymore.

She's still beautiful. He still wants her. But he doesn't believe she's good for him. Not anymore.

It's only later, when he's shaking and filled with hate for himself that he realizes she never wanted to get back together. She wanted to play with him.

Her hair- it's not silk, it's spider silk, designed to snare anyone foolish enough to stray too near. Kaori's a widow spider, beautiful but so obviously deadly to those who know what to look for. Her web is far reaching. Once you get caught, it's nearly impossible to leave. Unlike a real spider, she doesn't feast on your body but your mind, leaving you broken and empty inside. The human body is resilient; the human mind not so much.

He doesn't tell Dewa she came to see him. He knows what Dewa will say: _you shouldn't have let her in, you should have slammed the door in her face, don't think about her any more_. It's not so easy when things are actually happening.

He'll tell him eventually, just to hear Dewa say the words. There's a comfort in knowing Dewa cares, even if he has terrible ways of showing it.

Chitose doesn't realize it, but this is step one of his own self-destruction. He doesn't divulge, so he doesn't get help. He goes out after work and finds a black-haired girl with square glasses. The next night it's a brunette with a heart necklace. And so it goes.

They don't fill the chasm inside him, but the brief moments of bliss are so familiar he quickly becomes addicted. He starts to become known as that type of guy, the one who breaks girls' hearts without even knowing their names.

The chasm gets bigger with time, each person chiseling away at the walls. He keeps trying to find another _her_ but he never does because she has no substitute, because he's looking for her good side without remembering her bad.

His friends fall away. They say he's changed. He's not the person they used to know. Chitose tries to care, but their farewells are just another grain of sand in an hourglass of pain. The bottom's getting full, and he can't help thinking when he finds her replacement it'll turn upside down and he'll feel okay again.

ØØØ

Homra is the best thing. It solves so many of Chitose's problems and adds much easier ones to the mix.

_Come if you want or don't. Fight when your King or Kusanagi-san tells you to. Here's an automatic family. It's a little dysfunctional but it's still good._

Underneath those words, there are more. They're never spoken but, if you listen, you can hear them: _We're all hurting here. We all have problems. Let's fight side-by-side and ignore them together._

Homra is a stopgap and a godsend. Chitose doesn't get better. His problems stop seeming so important, though, and that's enough.

Dewa disagrees.

ØØØ

It feels so natural, the way the flames extend from him. Totsuka-san says everyone's range is different. Some Clansmen are extremely powerful and others, like himself, can do very little. Chitose thinks what Totsuka-san can do is great: elegant, little designs in the airs, butterflies mostly but sometimes spirals or stars. They're far better party tricks than tying a cherry stem using only your tongue.

It turns out Chitose has a lot more power than butterflies. He's nowhere near the King, of course- not even Kusanagi-san has that kind of strength- but he has power.

He suspects Dewa is stronger than him. He's not sure. Yata is ridiculously strong, for certain- Chitose expects to be cleaning up brain matter the first time a thug points a gun at him and nearly breaks his jaw gaping as the bullet fucking _glances off_. The twerp is incredibly fast, too, and can throw Kamamoto around easily. Sadly, Yata is an anomaly and a fucking idiot besides. Chitose won't be trying the bullet thing any time soon.

You get what you get, and there are no take-backs. Totsuka-san is cheery despite getting so little, and Chitose can't complain. Fuck, he's stronger than Bando and that's enough accomplishment for one lifetime.

He looks at the flames surrounding his hand. With this, he's always got a weapon at the ready. People will pause when they see the Red Aura. By its unmistakable color, they'll know exactly who stands with him.

A small voice inside his head whispers, _no one's ever going to hurt you again_.

ØØØ

Chitose craves physical contact, certainly, but there is no real reason for him to want to touch Dewa as often as he does. He used to do it more, unthinking, until he realized Dewa didn't take well to it. There is always that initial look of surprise that broke Chitose's heart just a little. How lonely must Dewa be to find a touch surprising?

Chitose can't miss that Dewa spends so much time alone. That might even be why they met in the first place. Chitose can't imagine a teacher looked at him and said, _this_ guy can use a tutor. That implied someone thought he had potential.

Most likely, he decided to pester Dewa until he found out what his future friend's deal was, why he chose to be so antisocial.

Probably. Maybe. He would ask Dewa, only Dewa might get mad and call him something mean. Like an idiot for not remembering how they met.

There isn't much Chitose remembers from junior high and he has to wonder how much he even went. As long as you're enrolled, they'll pass you on up to the next grade. _We don't care_ should have been the school system's motto.

Chitose has the singular pleasure of knowing he is one of the very few people Dewa feels attraction to. It eases the constant panic coursing through him. There is nothing to prove and no one to compete with. Dewa is always there to catch him when he falls.

Chitose falls a lot.

ØØØ

Chitose isn't serious about getting with Dewa until he is. For years Dewa maintained that he wasn't interested in doing the nasty, neglecting to mention the fine print that read excluding infrequent occasions with certain individuals of which you, Chitose Yo, happen to be one. This might creep out a lesser man, being all "I choose you!" but Chitose has a fine constitution and has himself been accused of creepiness on a few occasions, rendering him completely incapable of judging anyone on that front. Also, Dewa, despite most people's opinion of "meh", is Chitose's type.

One of them, anyway.

ØØØ

He gets a job as a host. Dewa disapproves, but then Dewa disapproves of most things Chitose does.

It's fun. Chitose gets to drink at work and talk to pretty girls without any obligations. He's being paid to do what he might on a weekend out.

Dewa says it isn't helping matters. Chitose pretends he doesn't know what Dewa's talking about.

ØØØ

Dewa does fuck him, a few times, and it is the best thing. He is free, for a few hours, of the fear that plagues him, saying, no, no, Chitose, don't start believing someone could actually want you as a person: your only worth is as a hot tongue and a warm body.

It's not like the sex is perfect. Dewa doesn't bother with foreplay much. He's direct, putting his hands on Chitose's neck, his hips, his inner thighs. He's thorough, though, sometimes even with a frown of concentration Chitose wants to reach out and touch. It's almost like it's methodical for him.

Chitose doesn't mind. If he wanted, he could go out and find someone more practiced to sleep with. That's not what he wants.

He wants someone who really cares, someone who knows who he really is underneath all the bullshit, and accepts him anyway. He knows he doesn't make it easy- he's too used to being who other people want him to be and failing. He's too used to being scared people won't accept his faults.

People do try to get in, jimmying their way under the defenses he's put up. He always shuts them down, Kaori's words echoing in his ears.

It is a good thing Dewa came around before the portcullis went up.

ØØØ

Chitose's relationship with Bando is simple: the guy annoys him but they have interests in common. Bando isn't a bad wingman, at least not as bad as Yata or Kamamoto. He actually comes around the bar, which is more than most of the Clan. He isn't as quiet or obsessive as Fujishima or as eerily penetrating as Totsuka-san or Anna. He doesn't control the booze like Kusanagi-san, and he sure as hell doesn't scare the shit out of Chitose like their King.

It stands to reason that, when Dewa fucks off or doesn't want to join in with the latest adventure, Chitose turns to someone else. And curse his choices, but he's always been a sucker for black hair.

He does not find _Bando_ attractive; let's make that clear. Just his hair, his height, and his glasses. Those fucking stupid, ugly-ass glasses. Chitose has hit on some questionable ladies because of their taste in eyewear.

Bando is an immature, insecure, tsundere dick when you get down to it. Shohei deserves better. He is kind, sweet, caring, halfway smart, and a fun guy. Bando's good points are, what, that he saved Shohei from possibly drowning once? So fucking what?

"San-chan! Were you waiting for me this whole time?" Shohei crows, sounding absolutely delighted when Bando flushes.

"It's- it's not like I wanted you to!"

Chitose's eyes narrow as he looks at Bando. Shohei is nearly hanging off of him and the guy is acting like it is the greatest hardship in the world. Sweet, short, excitable Shohei just wants to be near him and Bando is pretending it is a hardship. Chitose can't take this tsundere bullshit. He can't stand that Bando can be so lucky and so incredibly, unfairly assholish about it.

He is so jealous.

A hand slams into the back of his skull.

"Stop it," Dewa says. His voice is flat.

"Ow."

"You deserved it."

Chitose rubs the back of his head. It isn't worth protesting. Dewa doesn't give two shits what Chitose's reason for glaring at Bando's stupid fucking face is. For _some_ reason, Dewa is immune to Bando's awfulness. It must be a solidarity thing. They both do wear glasses.

"He can do better," Chitose protests. "A lot better."

"So can you."

Dewa isn't talking about the girls. He never critiques them, only Chitose for being foolish enough to sleep with them.

"You two don't have anything in common."

Dewa looks at him.

ØØØ

Chitose touches Yata's watch once and gets brainbusted for it. He uses this as proof any time someone tells him off for picking on the twerp.

He never does figure out what's so special about that stupid watch.

ØØØ

Now and then, the Red King looks at him like he actually sees him, not just through him. Chitose can't get it out of his head that the man is assessing him. He never looks at Dewa or any of the others that way. Even Kamamoto and Yata don't get these looks.

Chitose keeps waiting for his King to explain. He never does, because kings don't explain themselves to their subjects.

It isn't till Eric comes along that Chitose sees that penetrating gaze focused on someone else. What does it mean then? That Chitose isn't someone the King can completely trust? That is the only thing they have in common.

It is the only thing Chitose wants them to have in common.

Kusanagi has far more to do with their daily lives. They have an _interesting _relationship. Kusanagi is simultaneously a suave, slightly shady bartender, the Clan's mother figure, and an ill-tempered pervert. He'll put up with you one day and throw you out on your ass the next.

Chitose has to wonder how Kusanagi got mixed up with their King in the first place. It's not like Kusanagi's not got things going for him. Okay, so the bar might not be the most lucrative place, but Kusanagi seems to be doing fine. Maybe he inherited something other than the bar from his uncle. Chitose doesn't know.

He shouldn't care, really, why Kusanagi became a Clansman. But he does. Every so often, you get a glance of their King's power and it's so, so obvious that what they have doesn't compare, but- Kusanagi holds his own.

They're friends. Like, real friends. Around Kusanagi, sometimes, if you pay attention, you can see Kusanagi treating their King like a normal person, like he isn't a grenade with a loose pin. Not just berating him, because Kusanagi berates everyone, but like a human being who isn't lethal to himself and everyone around him.

Chitose can't ever forget how dangerous his King is. The very atmosphere around the King radiates power, dominance, and devastation. But for Kusanagi- and Totsuka, Anna, and Yata, too- it's like it isn't even there.

Chitose likes to think he might find his own Kusanagi one day.

ØØØ

"Chitose! What do you think you're-"

"Shh," Chitose says, covering Dewa's mouth.

"Get your hands off me," Dewa hisses.

"No."

"I'm going to _kill_ y-"

Chitose scrambles to shut him up, clapping both hands over Dewa's traitorous gob.

"_They'll hear you._"

"Who?"

Right then, his pursuers round the corner. There are at least twenty of them, monstrously tall and absolutely rippling with muscle and bad attitude. They leer, their teeth sharp as piranhas.

"What did you do?" Dewa yells as they pound down the pavement, a horde of delinquent girls chasing after them.

"I didn't know she was in a gang!"

"_What?!" _Dewa throws a look over his shoulder. "Why, because they aren't wearing _masks_?"

Someone else might call Chitose's ear-splitting grin apologetic. Dewa narrows his eyes.

"I hate you."

"That's just the aerobics talking. You don't mean it." He pulls ahead, forcing Dewa to speed up lest his bones be crushed and he be eaten. Breaking a yankii's heart. What a _wonderful_ idea.

"I really, really do," Dewa groans. Chitose isn't listening.

Dewa likes to pretend he doesn't enjoy these precarious adventures as much as Chitose likes to pretend he doesn't hit on certain types of girls for the hell of it.

ØØØ

"Our relationship is- it's not good," Dewa says. They're alone, Dewa having come to meet Chitose outside his workplace. Dewa always waits until they're alone to have these sorts of conversations, the devastating ones you want a buffer of compatriots for.

"It's not," Chitose agrees breezily. He could lie and say it is, that they are made for each other, that this, what they have is something other than ugly and raw, full of twisted elements a psychologist would love. Chitose tries not to lie when it's serious.

"I'm being serious, Chitose." Dewa always acts like Chitose can't be serious. He's serious all the time, just not in his words or his actions. His thoughts are as sober as any teetotaler's.

"So am I."

Dewa clenches his jaw, then relaxes it and sighs.

"We shouldn't see each other for a while," he says.

Chitose's stomach sinks. He isn't stupid enough to stop Dewa. You don't argue with those words unless you want them to become permanent.

This is the first time Dewa leaves. When he comes back, they grow closer.

It only makes the next time hurt that much more.

Chitose never grows used to Dewa leaving. The thought that Dewa means exactly what he says, that brutal honesty is actually a thing Dewa _does_, never becomes a concrete idea. When Dewa leaves, Chitose thinks that is it. Call him stupid for thinking so. Go ahead, do it.

Chitose can count on one finger the amount of friends who left and came back.

ØØØ

The first time Dewa disappears, Chitose doesn't take it well.

"It was two weeks! Stop moping around, idiot!" Dewa yells, kicking him out of bed.

"Where were you?" Chitose accuses, too angry to care that he hasn't taken a shower or left his futon in three days.

"Germany."

"And you couldn't have called me? Texted me? _Something_?" Chitose snaps before noticing Dewa's words.

"International fees. There are time differences, Chitose."

"You don't even speak German." Chitose pauses, his throat tightening with bitterness. "Yamaguchi."

Yamaguchi, despite looking like a porcupine's ass run over by a semi, ended up running off to Germany with a haafu girl he met in Nishio a year or two back. Dewa still keeps in contact with him, because Dewa is wholly unlike Chitose and doesn't let people slip away once they're out of sight. But spending two weeks with Yamaguchi?

"Yeah."

"What were you doing there?"

"Info-gathering. The Germans don't hide anything. It's all there if you know where to look. Do you know what this means?" Dewa looks excited. "We found Weismann's records, Chitose."

"Weismann? _The_ Weismann?"

Dewa nods fervently.

"Everything he had on the Red and Blue Aura. It was mostly hypotheses and testing on lab mice, but he had all these notes on the Dresden Slate as well."

"What are you going to do with it?"

Dewa shrugs. "Give it to Kusanagi. He's the one who wanted it in the first place. I got copies of the original and Yamaguchi translated as much as he can, but it's really dense stuff."

Chitose's eyes narrow. "You're saying Kusanagi got to know where you were and I didn't?"

"It was two weeks!"

ØØØ

Chitose isn't forgetful. That implies he pays attention in the first place. When you lie and you make empty promises, it is hard to remember which truth is real. When you are afraid all the time, you remember the fear, not the balm.

That must be why Dewa is so good at remembering- he doesn't have all these thoughts cluttering up his mind.

ØØØ

Dewa wears irritability like armor. He is as good at understanding people as he is at letting them in. Chitose guesses they have that in common, only Chitose over-exaggerates where Dewa under, pretends to be happy where Dewa glares. Is that what draws them to each other? The fact that they can't cope with this fucking world by being themselves?

Chitose wants a relationship like Shohei and Bando. He wants the camaraderie of Yata and Kamamoto, the gentle reassurances Fujishima gives Eric. Hell, he'd even take Amemiya's and Kaisumi's dysfunction if it meant he could have someone who looks at him the way Kaisumi looks at Amemiya. Contrary to popular belief, he doesn't need constant sex.

(Constant sex doesn't give him what he needs.)

He used to fantasize about him and Dewa getting together, an actual couple. They'd have an apartment together, maybe a dog or some fish, and they'd be happy.

They can still have that. They both have problems, but they can be dysfunctional together, like Kaisumi and Amemiya. Chitose is sure those two are fucking.

ØØØ

He's flirting with a pretty brunette who's got a heart-shaped face and a delightfully full bottom lip when he realizes he hasn't seen a certain hat in a while. The place is crowded, so he nudges the absence to the back of his mind.

A half hour passes and there's still no sign of that hat or those glasses. The brunette's been replaced by another brunette, this one with an adorable gap between her front teeth. Chitose listens to her talk about her coworkers and buys her another drink.

Ten minutes pass and Chitose's eyes flash around the bar, panic filling him. He never has a problem when he knows Dewa isn't going to be somewhere- being alone isn't the problem- only when he's supposed to be and he isn't.

Chitose hasn't truly been abandoned before. People have left without thinking of him. Is that abandonment? Don't you have to care about something for you to really abandon it? Instead, Chitose grew up without a father who turns out to be a disgraceful coward who never once deems to tell his son who he really is. Sato-san, even when he knows Chitose knows, never does anything about it. Once, just once, he admits he is Chitose's father. He doesn't apologize for never telling him, for never wishing him happy birthday or sending a card; he doesn't even pretend he cares that much.

Chitose's brothers leave, one moving out, the other vanishing from all their lives. They leave him alone with a worried, harried mother who is suddenly cut off from the support their father gave her. She loves Chitose, of course, but her constant situation makes him feel ill. He won't ever turn out like her. He _can't_ since she was the mistress of a businessman until she had him. His life can still spiral downwards, however, which it does.

He ends up attached to a businessman's son, scraping by at a host job and sleeping with a different girl every week. He gains membership in a Clan so violent he'll never be able to convince a regular person they aren't a gang. He spends his nights in love hotels and bars when he doesn't spend them alone. He isn't happy and his life isn't sustainable, and Dewa. Keeps. Leaving. He is his mother, and Dewa is too much like his father for his comfort.

Ah. There's Dewa. He must have disappeared in the crowd.

Chitose grins and raises his glass. Dewa rolls his eyes in return.

ØØØ

Prickly, prickly, prudish Dewa. He is everything Chitose wants.

Chitose giggles into his drink. Dewa thinks he's so good at hiding. They go way back. When you go way back, it's hard to hide things like this.

Dewa likes him. This is hilarious.

"You're drunk," Dewa says, tone filled with aggravation.

"Mmm hmm." Chitose smacks his lips and laughs at the sound it makes. Aggravated Dewa is good. It means he's paying attention.

The bar is loud, house music pounding in his eardrums, his chest. He can feel the music in his ribs. That is good, too.

It's Friday and this isn't their regular bar. It's new, just opened, and Chitose had dragged Dewa along to check it out. Dewa's been complaining all night. He hasn't left yet, though.

Chitose should look into getting some party friends. For now he leaves Dewa at the bar and hits the dance floor.

Long, black hair passes him by, accompanied by that unmistakable perfume. It jolts Chitose back into sobriety.

Her. She's here.

"Kaori!" His legs move, running after her. He has to catch up. He has to get to her, show her how fine he is without her. Or, better yet, get her back.

No. It's the other way around. Isn't it?

He has to catch up.

He reaches out, grabs the arm attached to that long hair...and finds it isn't her. The girl, pretty but with the wrong nose, the wrong eyes, the wrong everything but that hair and that scent, stares at him, her mouth open.

"Sorry, I'm so sorry," he stammers, his mouth not working as fast as his mind. "I thought you were someone else."

She nods, alarmed at the drunk man clutching her arm. Chitose drops it. He apologizes again, before turning and walking away.

What was he thinking? Kaori wouldn't be here. Last he heard, she'd gone to Akita. And yet he'd been so sure...

"Fuck," Chitose says, clutching his aching head.

What was he thinking? His life isn't better without Kaori. At least with her, he could say he had a stable relationship.

The way he's going he's doomed to die in some shitty alleyway after a fight gone wrong, written up in the obituaries as just another nobody with nothing to his name. Homra and his family might mourn him and a few pretty girls, too, but that's it. He's always thinking, if he can just smooth out the edges, fix all the little, broken things, he can make his life a bit better.

Except everything in his life is broken. He's got a shitty apartment, shitty not-friends, a shitty job, and a Clan most people don't believe is real. Shit, if they write a real obituary, no one will believe it. If he tells Kaori, she won't believe him, either.

Unless he shows her the Aura. If he shows her that, she'll know he's more than he was. She'll have to acknowledge him.

His head spins and he has to lean against the nearest wall. Dirt crumbles away under his hand. The ground beneath him is alternately wet and sticky.

Who is he kidding? He's broken, and nothing he does will make a real difference. It's easier, less painful to fix the outside, though, so that's what he'll do. No one needs to know he's falling apart on the inside, that the glue's been pasted on too fast, too often, and in too many layers to ever hold anything together. And now his mind's raving, his thoughts coming too fast and this can't be good, of course it's not good, and where's Dewa, no he needs to be alone, no, no, no.

The self-assured facade he's so carefully maintained is crumbling. Chitose can't rebuild it fast enough. Just a moment more and he'll have it.

He's lost control. His hands grip his head as it throbs. Nausea fills his stomach.

Now there are hands gripping his shoulders and Chitose can't deal with this right now and he looks up to tell the person to leave him alone, he needs to be alone-

Dewa. Air fills Chitose's lungs unbidden, the relief so sudden and deep. He leans forward, encircling Dewa with his arms, sucking in needed breath.

"Chitose-"

"I'm alright." _Don't make me move._

Some people have nice, elegant, easy thoughts that they can share with the world. Chitose isn't one of them.

"You wanna go home?" It comes out more a pitiful plea than a question.

"Yeah."

ØØØ

Dewa's parents have become a bigger part of his life in the last few years. He says he'd rather they go back to never being around, but Chitose knows better.

His mother is maddening, always berating Dewa about this or that, things Chitose's mother would never comment on. Of course, his oldest brother got arrested again and this time his dad wasn't there to bail him out and his middle brother fucked off to who knows where, so there isn't much she can find to criticize in his life. She's never been very critical, just tells him not to get anyone pregnant unless he has a good job. That's fair.

ØØØ

His mother would kill him if she saw how he treats these girls, playing on their expectations. It isn't his fault they think he's someone he isn't. That is still no excuse for using and misleading them.

He doesn't hate women. She didn't take that from him. He likes the girls he's with, might even go steady with them if he can get his head on straight. The worst part is he wants a relationship. He'd love to be normal and go on normal dates. If sex can mean something more than a ritual, if it does something other than ease the fear of living, if he could just connect to people again, Chitose would pay any price.

That person died, though, or got locked away somewhere no one can find him, at the hands of a sadistic, teenage girl. Chitose's been drifting ever since.

ØØØ

_People are selfish_, Kusanagi-san always says. _People look after themselves and their own interests, and that's why this is a terrible world. _

_Homra's not like that_, Totsuka-san will contradict because he is always optimistic. _We care about each other._

_Do we?_ Kusanagi-san will reply, shooting Totsuka a look of fond exasperation. It's amazing they get along: Kusanagi is the counter to Totsuka's everything. It should be amusing, this difference of opinions. It's not.

There is something very wrong with the world when the caring are cynical, and the hard-hearted are optimistic. Or maybe that is Homra to its core, all of them pretending to be something they aren't. Chitose doesn't know. He leaves the philosophical questions to others.

Imagine being afraid all the time. Imagine inadequacy ratcheted up to the highest gear. Imagine having a hundred people and wanting just one, just one person to pour enough water back into the dry well of your heart that it won't all get sucked up by the parched ground far, far below. This is Chitose's mind. It's a truth he tries to cover and one he mostly succeeds at, if you counted having next-to-no close friends and a Clan who doesn't understand you a success.

ØØØ

"Your problem, Dewa, is you think too much." Chitose doesn't mean anything by it, but Dewa's banked fire of a temper ignites.

"Really? You really want to go there?"

Chitose smiles blandly in reply. His heart, freshly supplied with adrenaline, races.

The most frustrating part is Dewa never says what _there_ is. He likes referring to Chitose's problems vaguely, which, since there are many of them, only makes Chitose assume he is talking about all of them at once.

He never says how much he knows. Chitose has to guess because he is never going to ask. He wants so badly to know that Dewa doesn't know as much as he makes out, that he doesn't know the things she's done and how she makes him feel, that he doesn't know Chitose wakes up some days shaking and afraid. Dewa knows that he thinks about her. He tells Chitose that much.

Dewa worries too much, for certain, and not just about himself. He makes it his life mission to look after Chitose who is doing alright by himself. Not great but alright. Better than bad for sure.

ØØØ

Kamamoto's behind the bar today, which means he'll have to pay up front. Kusanagi's a good businessman but Kamamoto grew up balancing cash registers and doesn't consider IOUs acceptable payment.

Chitose forks over ¥2000.

"Salty Dog."

"You didn't get enough at that job of yours?"

"It's not the same," Chitose complains. He has to drink whatever the customers buy him, which is mostly champagne or the frilly and over-priced drinks that boost his paycheck while massacring his taste buds. There's something liberating about being able to choose for yourself. "It's a pity, since our bartender is easier on the eyes."

Kamamoto smirks. Chitose's smile turns into a pout. No one takes him seriously around here. Course, Chitose's hit on Kamamoto a time or two, once even ran into him at a club neither of them would ever admit going to and bought him a drink. He even talked with Kamamoto a bit, just so he wouldn't have to admit how mortified he was to be found there.

It was a gay club, is what Chitose is saying.

It was October and Kamamoto, despite his ample size or perhaps because of it, was surprisingly popular with his delinquent looks and, well, charm. He could really pull it out when he wanted to, all suave and host-like. He also seemed to be a well-known, sought-after regular. Chitose was able to slip away when another patron, redheaded and petite, planted himself right next to Kamamoto and demanded his attention. Chitose did score that night, running into someone amenable on the way out, but he hasn't been back since.

Since then, Kamamoto's been a lot more buddy-buddy, ignoring Chitose's protests that, no, really, his problems in life have nothing to do with wanting to exclusively fuck guys. Kamamoto's a fun guy, though, even if he's probably responsible for the rumors that Chitose's closeted.

The quiet drag of fabric against fabric alerts Chitose to Eric's presence. The blond is dozing on Kusanagi's ugly couch. Like always, his legs are pulled up to his chest.

He's shot up since he first arrived, a combination of regular food and late onset puberty. It does nothing to erase his fragile, wary image. It's an all too common look in Shizume, especially among women and children. Chitose wants to hurt every person who ever touched Eric wrong. He wants to feel bones snap, hear agonized screams, and smell singed, human flesh.

He swallows too much from the glass Kamamoto hands him and ends up choking. Kamamoto reaches across the bar to slap him on the back while chastising him for being so stupid. When Chitose looks back, Eric's eyes are open and filled with amusement.

Dewa doesn't like Eric. It's probably because he doesn't pay enough attention to him. The first time Chitose heard Eric whip out a particularly acerbic comment, Chitose didn't know Eric well enough to realize he was being an asshole. The realization that Eric is sarcastic as fuck, especially towards Bando and Yata, cements his fondness for the blond. Sure, it's not healthy, but the circlejerk of meanness the three of them have going on constitutes a friendship, albeit a fucked up one. And Eric has the best insults, trading his usual blunt speech for a roundabout jab at someone's insecurities.

Chitose loves him, much more than some of the others.

Definitely more than Bando. Fuck that guy.

ØØØ

A year has passed and Kaori continues to plague him, her deceptively sweet face and her sweet body following him from morning until night. He wakes up and he thinks of her; he sleeps and he thinks of her. When he talks to other girls, it is her face he imagines- unless he chooses the woman for how different she looks. There are times when he just needs peace.

Every time he thinks he has forgotten her, a voice, a picture, a word brings her back, flooding his mind with memories. Not all of them are bad. That's the worst part. He knows she isn't good for him or to him and yet…

And yet he still wants her. He still can't move on. His fingers hesitate over the buttons of his PDA, her number already half-dialed. No. He won't give in.

He places the PDA back in his pocket.

ØØØ

Sex is easy. Chitose's good at sex. It's something he can offer and know will be good.

Only Dewa doesn't like sex. If he did, Chitose would be on him in a minute flat. Then he could have something to hold over him and make him stay. Without that, what does Chitose have to offer?

Okay, so Chitose can't fuck Dewa, but he can sure as hell pretend. In his mind. Chitose has a very healthy, if slightly oversexed, fantasy life.

He strokes himself, imagining his friend's face, that ever-present scowl and those ugly, square glasses. The bowler hat is gone, pushed to the side, Dewa's hair falling free across his forehead.

Chitose shudders as he comes. He sits up and wipes his hand on a dirty shirt. Guilt pricks at his heart, little needles plunging in and pulling out too fast to cause permanent damage. Dewa would be sickened if he knew. He doesn't like sex, says it's messy and open. It makes you vulnerable. How are they friends again?

Chitose reaches for a cigarette. Fantasies never do any harm, right?

At least it isn't _her_ this time.

ØØØ

Pretty boy, they call him. Ikemen. Flirt. Tease.

His favorite is idiot, said in an exasperated tone as the actions say, _I won't let anyone hurt you_.

ØØØ

Chitose remembers that first time, lying there with his eyes held closed, praying that when he opened them the space in the bed next to him wouldn't be empty.

One, two, three. He opened his eyes to the inevitable- and was met with the sight of Dewa's back, the light curves of his ribs showing on his thin frame. He watched the rise and fall of Dewa's breathing, traced the ridges of Dewa's spine with his gaze.

He was there. He wasn't who Chitose wanted most, not the person who had taken his heart and crushed it in her fist with a sweet smile, but he was there.

ØØØ

Shohei is the most adorable thing. Chitose isn't ashamed to admit that, just as he isn't ashamed to say Bando is a petty, whiny dick.

Bando is panicking at the moment, even though the enemy is on the ground and unconscious. Mostly. Eric, his hands shoved deep in his hoodie pockets, kicks the groaning henchman in the head. The man crumples back to the ground.

"You can't keep doing this!" Bando yells. He's holding Shohei by the shoulders and shaking him. "We're not immortal! What were you thinking, going in without anyone to back you up? You were supposed to be scouting!"

"They almost died," Fujishima says from the peanut gallery the rest of them have created a few meters away, "last time."

"No, they didn't," Chitose scoffs. "You weren't even there." But he isn't so sure. What does it even mean, almost dying, to someone like them?

Fujishima doesn't argue, just goes back to watching the show.

"Why is he getting so worked up about this?" Chitose hisses to Dewa. "Shohei did something stupid. So fucking what."

"This isn't the first time," Dewa says. Bando is still berating Shohei, only Shohei's shell-shocked expression has turned into a spreading grin. "Shohei enjoys sacrificing himself, it seems."

Chitose scowls.

"And they did almost die last time. How do you think Bando fractured his arm?"

"You can't die from a fractured arm."

"They weren't aiming for his arm. You don't remember what they looked like when we got there?"

Chitose does. He remembers blood and bruises, cronies standing in a loose circle…and Bando slung half-unconscious across Shohei's lap. He also remembers other times when Bando's gotten hurt. Bando is always getting hurt because Bando uses his body like a shield, like he believes he gained their King's invulnerability. He didn't, obviously, but. Each of them has the power of a tank or more. Bando may be one of the weakest, but he's still the _only one consistently_ _getting hurt_.

Chitose remembers, too, that Shohei believes he almost died once, in a river, when he was a child, and that he believes Bando saved him.

Bando's face is centimeters from Shohei's, the height difference apparent, when he tilts his head just a little and suddenly they're making out. Not the gratuitous, gross, look-how-in-love-we-are making out but the desperate, you're-alive-and-I'm-so-relieved making out, the type you can't be rude about no matter what, and Chitose's not interested in watching at all.

He is, however, _very_ interested in the blush spreading across Fujishima's cheeks.

ØØØ

Totsuka likes to describe Homra as one big family. Like a big family, there are plenty of members Chitose wouldn't mind seeing once a year.

Case in point: Nakamura is a jerk who criticizes everyone but especially Kamamoto too much. He wants to take Kamamoto's place. No one's quite sure what he means by this, whether he wants to tend the bar or act as Yata's partner. Either way, he's glamorizing what has to be a less-than-fun job.

Today, Nakamura's dumb enough to complain in Chitose's earshot and it's not about Kamamoto.

"Have you seen those glasses?" Nakamura's got a gaggle of dumber Clansmen crowded around him. It's debatable whether they agree with him or are just too bored to ignore him. "They're so pretentious!"

Chitose studies him, debating whether Nakamura deserves a beating. Nakamura's got a centimeter on him, no muscle, reddish-black hair, and a big, fucking mouth. It splits his stupid face in two. The most arresting thing about him, aside from that mouth, is the Mark covering the right side of his neck, the tip of the flame touching the corner of his jaw. The Marks have little rhyme or reason. A couple, like Kusanagi's and Totsuka's, mirror each other or are in similar spots. Then there are those like Nakamura's and Kamamoto's that are in entirely awkward places.

Chitose would like Nakamura's to be a little more hidden, so he could pretend he wasn't connected to him in any way.

"He's so weird. Can you imagine that guy gets to spend so much time with the King?"

It's the sort of comment Dewa would call inane and ignore if he was here. He's not.

Chitose punches Nakamura. It's not one of the knocks on the head you find everywhere in this clan, but a real, nose-breaking blow.

He relishes the blood that spurts onto his hand and gushes from Nakamura's nose. Without bothering to hear Nakamura's protest, Chitose walks away.

The fact that Nakamura could have been talking about Bando and not Dewa doesn't bother him overly much.

ØØØ

Shohei has a wide-eyed look and an optimism that makes him appear far more innocent than he actually is (_Are we all liars hiding in our skins?_). They're a gang after all, and Shohei joined of his own accord. He's good and he's nice, but he isn't innocent.

Be too smart and this world will eat you alive. Don't be smart enough and it will swallow you faster. Chitose can't remember who told him that, but it fits Shohei perfectly. Or Totsuka. Or a lot of people, really.

Regardless, Chitose genuinely likes Shohei in a way he doesn't like Bando, Yata, or even Kamamoto. He likes Shohei like he likes Eric and Fujishima.

They're not competition. He doesn't have to be on his guard around them because they're not trying to take anything from him or worse, one up him. Chitose is positive Shohei hasn't liked a girl in his life and Eric's too broken, and Fujishima's more interested in animals than people. Like with Dewa, he can relax.

Most of the time. Shohei's eyes bother Chitose sometimes. They're different, smaller, but sometimes just as all seeing. Kusanagi-san once said Totsuka sees because he's cold-hearted and people are an amusement for him. Shohei's naiveté hides something. Chitose doesn't want to find out what.

ØØØ

"What if we got together?" Dewa asks once, unprompted. His face is turned away. It hurts, Dewa's uncertainty. Many things with Dewa hurt, but this most of all.

_You love me_ is less an assured statement than a plea. _Notice me. Love me. You're the only one left I can trust._

"Who says we aren't?" Chitose asks. His smile is light. His heart is not.

If Chitose told Dewa what was really going on in his head, would Dewa leave him? If he knew how often Chitose wished his life were different, how often he regretted every decision, would he help him change it? What would happen if Dewa knew everything about him?

It's so much easier to pretend not to feel this way.

Compared to Chitose, Dewa is free. Free from desire, from fear, from the constant thought that he isn't enough, he'll never be enough.

ØØØ

"You should talk to your mother more."

"I would but you see, I'm already going to end up just like her and I'd rather put that off for a while."

"You're going to turn into an unmarried mother of three," Dewa says in disbelief.

"Yes, exactly. You are so good at understanding what I'm saying, Dewa." Chitose delivers this with exactly no inflection to indicate he is anything but delightfully serious. Because advice about family from Dewa? Not something Chitose is going to take.

His mother once told Chitose he was born at an unfortunate time. She doesn't regret having him, she says, just when. _You ruined a good thing I had_, is what she meant. _I was the mistress to a rich man before he saw your face and knew you weren't his._ Between that, her lying to him for half his existence about his father, and his fuck up of a life so far, Chitose's mother doesn't need to be closer to him.

ØØØ

Totsuka never complained about having less than the rest of them.

_You knew he wasn't strong enough_, Chitose thinks bitterly. _Everyone knew he was the weakest and we still let him go out alone._

So incautious, so weak. He was reckless and he had no reason to be. Did he think he was invincible?

Chitose won't ever stand in front of a bullet. He won't ever match his strength against Yata's. You get what you get.

His pride isn't worth death.

Homra never promised to keep them safe.

ØØØ

Acid burns Chitose's throat as his stomach cramps for the millionth time that week.

There was a body to burn and bury, which they did. Someone, Kusanagi probably, was together enough to buy a plot and tell everyone where to go and when.

Chitose doesn't remember what was said or who said it. His eyes had followed Shohei's hand as it moved to clutch Bando's, as Amemiya's knuckles turned white, as more than one Clansman cried into a friend's shoulder.

He felt sick because he cared more about the hands linking together, offering comfort, than the reason they needed to be. He felt sick because Dewa was lost in the crowd and not even trying to find him.

Who was the Red King to him? A distant figure, someone there but too important to be bothered. The link between everyone around him.

No one came to comfort him that day.

Two days later he broke a mugger's arm and burned his face.

Three days later, Dewa was gone.

Ever since, Kaori's words have echoed in his ears. _What makes you think anyone cares about you? Everyone's left you, Yo, because no one thinks you're _special_._

Now it's been three weeks and it feels like a day, and Chitose is having trouble holding together. Dewa hasn't been back, and Homra- it's gone, is what it is. The core, those of them who hung around the bar, are the worst hit and the others have left. They fought when they were asked to. Now there's nothing left to fight for.

He can't stand Bando or Shohei, who are never apart. Eric is easier but Fujishima hovers, and Chitose's muscles tremble when he's around them. He never could stand to see Yata cry.

Most people would describe Homra as violent, never seeing its true nature. Its members were all hopelessly in love with each other, tangled up in a web of human relationships. Some loved too many, some loved only one, but they were all connected by friendship or desire or desperation, things that hadn't the least to do with purpose. Justice, maybe, but that was always secondary. You could say it was the price they paid for security, stability, friendship.

And now it was gone. It took less than a month to decimate the Red Clan, and only two people had died. Homra's ties weren't so strong after all.

Not everyone got the message.

A few days back, Shohei came to see him with Eric in tow. Chitose didn't understand their logic. Hadn't he made it clear he didn't want to be around them? Bar Homra hadn't moved. He hadn't magically lost his way. If he wanted to go, he would.

He didn't want to.

"Are you here to check up on me?" he asked, begrudging their presences. He'd had to get off the couch and untangle himself from his layers of blankets, as well as walk all the way to the door to open it. It was a lot of effort for someone who wasn't putting out much these days.

"We just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Of course I am." He was as fine as any of them, which was not at all.

"Where's Dewa?" Shohei asked, looking around like he might see him.

Chitose shrugged and collapsed back onto the couch. "Where's Bando?"

"At work. He got a new job last week. I think he's actually going to keep this one."

Eric made a disbelieving noise. Normally, Chitose would have agreed with him. But today wasn't normal and neither was yesterday or the day before that, and he couldn't be bothered to care.

They were worried about him; they even said so. But they weren't Dewa and they weren't alone, and his stomach clenched and his breath ceased. He'd rather be alone than with them.

"I'm really fine," he lied. _I'm dying, and I have no reason to be. I'm a selfish, awful person. I want someone who's come back before but won't come back again because what held us together was a King with flames more pink than red and a reason to fight.  
_  
_I fell in love with a man who barely understands what love is_, he should have explained. _Now I'm hurting while others lie dead because I won't take a substitute._ He should laugh bitterly in Eric's abused face and Shohei's too understanding one. They would comfort him and say they understood, or Shohei would while Eric stood there with dull eyes because Chitose's problems are so, so small.

So Chitose said nothing. The room grew heavy with unspoken words.

They left soon after.

It's been a week since then. Maybe they think he's left, too.

Dewa hasn't been back. He won't answer Chitose's calls or block his number so Chitose knows to give up. So he keeps trying because he doesn't know who else to try, who else knows enough or cares enough to listen and understand. He's lost his purpose, along with his rock and his friend and the person he loves most in this wretched world.

Is this what Kusanagi feels? Yata?

Chitose hasn't left his apartment since Monday morning. In a half hour, it'll be noon. It's already Thursday. He keeps hoping, if he stays in one place long enough, Dewa will come back to him. If he stays in his apartment, Dewa will find him that much faster. Except Dewa isn't looking.

Chitose scrolls through his contacts, becoming more disheartened with every name.

He pauses. She's been begging him to talk to her for years.

He calls.

"Mom," he says when she picks up. "I need to talk to you."

She's so happy to hear his voice. So happy. What should he say? Dewa's gone and so's their King and Totsuka, Totsuka's so gone they didn't have anything to bury. She won't understand. This was stupid. He shouldn't have called.

"Mom." She isn't listening. She's so happy she isn't listening. He's not sure if that's better or worse. "Mom!"

"Yes?"

"Someone close to me died."


	3. Chapter 3

Dewa's been avoiding her so long, he's forgotten she was the one who found him in the first place. She's waiting for him outside his apartment, looking like she could wait there an eternity.

He has an ugly bruise blooming on his cheek and split knuckles so fresh the blood's sticky and not fully dried. It turns out Chitose's propensity for fighting wasn't something Dewa had gone along with just because. He's embarrassed she has to see him this way. He isn't embarrassed about the second-degree burn he left around the would-be molester's throat.

"I haven't seen him in two weeks," Dewa snaps.

Chitose-san doesn't look away or leave.

"I know," she says. "He told me when we spoke on the phone."

That's new.

"Then why are you here?"

"He told me a friend of his passed away."

Dewa snorts. He feels rough and raw, scraped on the inside until he's too empty to be human anymore. He felt angry and then deeply calm when he grabbed the molester's arm and shoved him against the subway wall. For a few seconds, he felt alive. Now that is gone and this awful feeling has returned.

"He said this friend was very special," Chitose-san continues. She looks up at him through her eyelashes. There was a time when he had to look up at her. She seems so small now. "At first, I thought he meant you. Clearly, I was wrong."

"Clearly."

"He said this friend was very important to all his friends."

Was she supposed to be talking about Totsuka or the King? Dewa wants to laugh at this ignorant woman talking in stilted terms about the death of one of the most important men in Shizume City. She knows nothing. A Damocles Down almost destroyed half the city and she. Knows. Nothing.

"You don't know the half of it," he says in a semblance of manners.

Her face twists in anger. Her hands ball into fists. "Then tell me! You know him best."

"I can't. I won't," Dewa clarifies. "If Yo wanted you to know, he would have told you."

"I dated a gangster once."

Dewa shakes his head. She sounds so young in her desperation. If people were going to come after her, they would've already. Still, it's not his mother, his secret.

"What do you have against your mother?" he asked Chitose once, long after these informal meetings between a middle-aged woman and her son's sometimes lover, always friend began.

"Plenty," was the answer.

Chitose could be unreasonable in his grudges. Dewa assumes this time is different.

"I'm worried about him. I always am, but-." She bites her lip. "He's depressed."

"You think I'm not?! You think we all aren't? Totsuka and Mikoto are dead and there's nothing we can-" he stops, seeing how she's soaking up the information. His shoulders slump. It's been a hard few weeks, made that much harder by going it alone. "What do you want from me, Chitose-san?"

She's quiet for a moment. Then she reaches up and touches his cheek, sweet like a mother would do, not a lover.

"I want you to love my son," she says, "the way I know you do. He's suffering right now and he won't let me help him. You're the only one of his friends I know. Then he tells me you haven't been around because sometimes you get fed up with him and leave."

"That's not true," Dewa protests.

She smiles. "Sometimes what we think is true matters more than what really is."

"I love him," Dewa whispers hoarsely. Her hand is still touching his face. She's still smiling at him.

"I know you do. And I think you're hurting, too, Dewa-kun."

ØØØ

Dewa should probably feel flattered that Chitose takes his absence so poorly. Instead, he takes it as another sign that they aren't good for each other. A grown man who can't take rejection well. It's not good.

When did Chitose start falling apart? When Dewa left or when he came back?

How long did it take Chitose to notice he was gone?

"Why are you here?" are the first words out of Chitose's mouth.

"Go take a shower," Dewa tells him instead of answering. The room reeks of cigarette smoke. The floor is littered with empty beer bottles and discarded clothing. Cigarette stubs fill the two ashtrays Dewa can see.

He tries to be mad. He can't. A giddy guiltiness fills his chest as his heart beats double-time. _Look at what you did to me_, Chitose's eyes accuse him and Dewa, because he is a horrible person, feels unseemly proud. Chitose will destroy himself if Dewa isn't here to keep him together.

And Dewa likes that.

He shakes his head and takes out the trash.

He returns in time to see Chitose step out of the bathroom. The humid air follows him, clings to his handsome body like the lover Dewa isn't. He has a towel slung low around his trim waist. For once, his characteristic passion isn't present, consumed by an apathy, a loneliness, a guarded _if you're going to leave again, do it already_.

The towel slips artlessly and piles on the floor. Dewa stares, not because of what he sees but because of what he doesn't.

His is gone, too, but seeing the bare expanse of skin where once a stylized flame had been is shocking. The symbol of that larger connection is gone. Chitose sees him looking and runs a hand over his hip.

"I keep expecting it to be there," he admits.

Then he pulls on a pair of boxers, and it's hidden once again. Pants are next, then a shirt, and then Chitose's holding a comb, looking at it like he doesn't remember what to do.

"Come here," Dewa says, pushing him in front of the foggy bathroom mirror. He takes the comb and pulls it through Chitose's hair, careful not to let it snag. Chitose looks straight ahead. In the reflection, his eyes are dull.

With his hair wet and combed, wearing clean clothes, Chitose looks presentable. He doesn't look happy. Dewa sighs.

He presses his lips to the nape of Chitose's neck. It's not a thought, just a reaction to Chitose's unhappiness, and Chitose can tell. His eyes widen. His breath hitches.

They end up in on the couch, Chitose laying soft kisses on Dewa's arm and neck while Dewa plays idly with Chitose's damp hair. They stay like that until Chitose's stomach growls and Dewa pushes him away.

"When's the last time you ate?" he asks, standing up.

Chitose doesn't remember.

His refrigerator has more beer than food, so Dewa orders in. Chitose lights a fresh cigarette.

Is it ironic that they always end up having sex when Dewa returns?

The guilt of leaving weighs on him, making him realize how much he owes Chitose. They lie down together, Chitose content to simply watch him. Dewa slips a hand under the elastic of his friend's boxers and wraps it around his shaft, jerks him off. He watches Chitose's face, listens to the soft sounds he makes, groans and quiet whimpers, his breathing harsh, and wonders when Chitose became so vulnerable. It's over soon enough.

He lets Chitose curl up against him in the aftermath; brushes brown hair away from his face as he presses a gentle kiss to Chitose's forehead.

They sleep side by side, Chitose facing him, him facing the wall. Dewa stays well past morning the next day and forces Chitose to take another shower while he cleans the apartment some more. It's a ritual Dewa repeats time after time.

What if he was wrong all this time, his ideal too lofty to ever be reality? No one can undo what Kaori did, not truly. What if Chitose loves him because he knows Dewa is what he needs, not just what he wants?

It's a small idea. Dewa expects it to disappear soon enough, once logic steps in and points out all the fallacies.

Only logic never does, and Dewa has to wonder whether he's been wrong all along.

ØØØ

He doesn't leave again. Logically, he should. There is nothing linking him to Chitose, no Mark, no Clan. Kaori is gone. He's not trying to fix Chitose anymore. He is simply in love.

Sometime in the last few months- or is it years?-, Chitose went from being simply his most precious person to his most important. So he stays. He makes two promises to Chitose and to himself. The first is that he won't leave again. _I love you_, he breathes into Chitose's skin when they lay side-by-side at night. _I've loved you for so long._ He's kept those words quiet a long time. No more.

Transparency, the second promise, is hard for both of them. The thing they've always been able to trust most about each other is neither one of them tells the whole truth. Laying himself bare makes him vulnerable.  
_  
I'll be vulnerable for you._

How many years has he been following Chitose around, wondering why he even bothers?

Chitose smells like cigarettes and cologne. His skin is soft in some places, hard in others. His hair is smooth to the touch, copper-toned brown. His smiles- lazy, carefree, reassuring, startled- come too readily. He's a fool, reckless but deeply caring. He wants to change the world.

Dewa would make a terrible poet. Yet these are the things he loves, yes, _loves_ most about his friend.

Sex holds no allure for him, but the emotions are wonderful, the way Chitose's desire spills over and consumes the both of them.

Together with Bando, Shohei, Kamamoto, Fujishima, and even Eric, they hold together the fracturing remains of Homra. He sleeps next to Chitose most nights and curses himself for not realizing how much better this is for the both of them.

ØØØ

As for Chitose, he's happy. The manic drive to be the most attractive man in the room has slowed to a comfortable speed. He can look at Kamamoto in the summer and appreciate him for his looks without feeling the maddening desperation to be better. He's not so jealous of Bando anymore, either, now that he knows how much he genuinely cares for Shohei, now that he sees what a cute couple they make.

It's still a struggle to sit through a conversation with his mother. There are so many things they haven't said to each other over the years. At first, he doesn't know where to start, only that he doesn't want to tell her anything. He ends up telling her about Kaori, how lonely he's been, how he doesn't know where to go from here. About Dewa. She likes him, which surprises Chitose as much as it relieves him.

She tells him about his father, how it was never anything but a foolish affair. She never asked for his help because she knew he had nothing to give. Chitose knows that answer is the truth.

"I never regretted you," she says, reaching out to tuck his hair back behind his ear, "only that I had you at a bad time."

It's not the first time she says it, but the meaning seems different this time. _I made a mistake, and your brothers suffered for it. That doesn't make it your fault._

He walks through his mother's garden, stopping where the high fence separates it from the neighbors'. He looks through the slats into Sato-san's house.

"He moved away," his mother says, coming up behind him but keeping her distance, "a few years ago. I guess he got a job somewhere."

"Did you love him?"

His mother's hands are folded in front of her. She must be nearly forty now. There's a little gray streaking through her undyed hair. She's still beautiful, in her quiet way.

"For a while."

"Did he break your heart?"

She laughs. It sounds full of regret. He can't tell whether it's for Sato-san or herself. "I think I broke his."

ØØØ

He thinks that's it. The Aura still thrums under his skin, reminding him that it's still there and that its originator is gone. He still wants to hit Kusanagi-san over the head and make him see that they have to keep going. They all have scars, doesn't Kusanagi-san see?

Just because the King's gone doesn't mean Shizume's gotten any better. Chitose lets the Aura out, keeps order better than he did before. Dewa's at his side, always. He's more hesitant with his flames, but no less lethal.

So they, with the others, keep Homra together. They wait, knowing they have no reason to hope but hoping all the same. They crowd into Bar Homra, where Kusanagi waits listlessly, where Yata rarely shows, where Anna clings to Kamamoto, and they wait.

In August, nine months after their Marks disappeared, the Red King returns.


End file.
